Domestic accidents come in many shapes and sizes and I’ve had my fair share. During my life, I have also come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from the mewling babe-in-arms to the small-for-his age schoolboy all the way to the oversized I-wish-I-had-more-clothes-that-still-fit-me incarnation of the present day. My domestic accidents through the years have had a wide range of causes, but most have involved bleeding.

Among certain physiological traits (e.g. a mildly cleft chin, the family backside), my father bequeathed me other things. One of them is a genuine talent for drawing blood when performing the most mundane and non-injurious domestic task. I can quite easily, for example, end up interestingly injured after performing any gardening job, vehicle repair (I have to fix the brakes on the truck soon, and I don’t relish the idea) or even merely moving items from one room to another.

Cooking (and proximity to those pesky sharp knives) has taught me many bloody lessons over the decades, to the point where the overwhelming majority of meals I cook these days are free from any of my haemoglobin. These days I’m pretty safe around knives.

Yesterday’s offering, for example, promised to be a bloodless, injury-free meal that I have prepared many times ( a Bolognese sauce paired with a spaghetti squash, for the curious). Our little house was filled with the heady aromas of herbs and garlic coming together like old friends, and all that remained was for me to prepare the squash. It sounds easy enough. It seemed easy enough.

So, when the football-sized squash exploded in my face, it was something of a surprise. A shock, even. “Argh!” I shouted helpfully as the squash gave up its structural integrity in a very sudden and immediate fashion, accompanied by a sound which – to my best recollection – was a mixture of a “Whump!” with a hint of “Pop!” and a smidgen of “Kablooey!”. In fairness, I was distracted at the time by the boiling squash matter spattering my face, my glasses and the exposed skin offered up courtesy of my Tee-shirt.

“Well, that was different.” I thought, as my wife leapt from her chair and towards the ‘fridge for some ice. “I’m OK! I’M OK!” I yelled through my new attractive veil of stringy squash matter, my priority suddenly being a need to avoid ice cubes being applied by my lovely lady with her usual enthusiasm for such things. I’d no idea if I was actually OK, I just knew that I didn’t want ice cubes. Anywhere.

The ensuing little dance around the kitchen to the tune of my wife yelling “Take your shirt off!” gave me just enough time to check my sensors for signs of damage, to thoroughly alarm our elderly neighbours, and then to convince my would-be Florence Nightingale that the application of freezing things was not required. Her raised eyebrow, however, betrayed a certain level of skepticism. Today’s interesting blister on the inside of my right arm may just indicate that she had a point.